Even though the Stars haven’t been mathematically eliminated from the playoff race, everyone knows that it’s going to take more than a miracle to get in. If we were to even make the playoffs, I don’t think they can survive without the likes of Morrow, Richards, Zubov, and Robidas.

I plan on watching the playoffs, and have decided to cheer for Columbus and Detroit (and Montreal and Washington in the East), but I know it won’t be the same without my Stars in the playoffs.

The only times I haven’t seen the Stars make the playoffs were in 2001-02 and 2004-05 (but there was NO NHL hockey that year so it doesn’t really count), so this is a sad time for me. I know this is the first time we haven’t made the playoffs for a lot of Stars bloggers… believe me, long offseasons suck. But right now, that really seems to be the best solution for this team. Well, that and some roster moves, but expect a large blog about that once the season is actually over.

Since this is a sad time that leaves me feeling very confused and a little depressed, I’ve been watching archived games over at the BEST hockey-watching website ever (www.hockeystreams.com) from last season’s playoffs. Maybe I’ll watch all the way through in the coming months, but tonight I’m watching Game 1 vs. the Ducks. Watching the game brings back a flood of feelings and activities that I will be sad to miss this spring… even though, in hindsight, they may not have been overly productive to my life outside of watching hockey and talking about hockey (which, if I had my way, would not include much).

So, here’s the list of things I’ll miss this spring:

Wearing a Stars shirt for every gameday. This was made better by the fact that I wore a shirt over and over until the Stars lost a game. Since the games were usually every other day, I had a few people in my MWF classes who wondered if I had lost all my other clothes.

Washing said “lucky” shirt after each playoff win. I wore my Helsinki South shirt for Game 6 of the Anaheim series and the first 3 games of the San Jose series, so after each game, I’d make a mad rush to my dorm’s laundry room to get the shirt washed before I needed to wear it again.

Watching Versus from 6 pm – well past midnight when the last game was finally over. I did this every night to get see how all the other teams were doing and pick out future matches for the Stars.

The random thunderstorms in San Antonio that cut off my cable seconds after Brenden Morrow scored an overtime winning goal. I still remember the phone call to my mom: “MOM!!!! WE WON!! BRENDEN SCORED AND THEN MY CABLE DIED!”

Eating duck, shark, and wings for each round of the playoffs.

Staring down the girl at Trinity who wears a Red Wings jersey.

Checking every hockey website at least every hour to see if there is any news of injuries or other important events.

The sacrifice that Robi made on every shift.

Funny Brenden/Marty postgame conferences about chickens.

Brenden’s hits. Brenden’s goals (even the ones disallowed). Brenden’s “I want to win or else” attitude that he kept throughout the entire playoffs. Brenden standing on the bench screaming at Tippett that he wanted to play. THE goal in Game 6. I could write a whole entry on how much better Brenden makes the playoffs.

Being in the emergency room for Game 2 of the first round, and being more concerned about how the Stars were doing than how I was doing.

Going to playoff games and getting to stand the whole time without complaints from “fans”.

How exhausted you feel the morning after a 4 OT loss compared to how elated you feel the morning after a 4 OT win.

Arranging my schedule around the playoffs schedule. “No, I can’t come to the meeting tonight. I have another meeting I can’t get out of.”

Starting a small riot with our “Believe” sign after Game 4 of the Conference Finals.

Sitting in the Fanatics section and starting all the chants that went through the arena.

Razor’s playoff blogs, especially the songs he writes for players. “B. Morrow” and “Turcolicious” should be hits!

Sitting in class wondering if Tippett will shuffle the lines, if Marty will show up to play, how many people Ott will piss off, what else Brenden will be able to do… Well maybe this will benefit my grades this spring!

The knowledge that EVERY shift of EVERY game is important.

Even though it’s hard when they lose, it’s so much better when they win. I will miss living and dying with all of their wins and losses. Nothing beats the feelings of having a team in the playoffs.

This ended up being pretty long, and I could still write more. But I have hockey to watch…

The playoff race in the Western Conference is in a scary place right now. Just last week, the Stars were in 5th all by themselves, and now we’re in a mess with 3 other teams for the 7-10th spots with the losses to Chicago and San Jose over the weekend.

Sarah and I were at the game Saturday against Chicago, and even though we had a great time at the game, the Stars still couldn’t come up with a win. Here’s to hoping to not finish 5th in the conference because a meeting with the Blackhawks would not be pleasurable. Plus, Brenden is NOT ALLOWED to play games against Chicago anymore since both of his big injuries came against the Hawks.

Just a few comments on some things that have been running through my head the past week or so:

I think Fistric is going to get traded at the deadline. I think it’s a weird coincidence that he didn’t get called up until 2 weeks before the deadline. There were definitely occasions before then that we could have used another (big) defenseman.

How nice would it be to get Jeff Halpern back? It’d be great to have a checking line center who could win some faceoffs. I don’t see us needing to get a big-name center to replace Richards since he will be back for the playoffs, and even though we have the cap space, there is a lot of money that’s not counting for the cap that Hicks still has to pay.

My biggest worry? Smitty going to Detroit. It started out as a rumor in the most recent Hockey News, but it’s a very scary thought. Babcock said last year that if the Wings play their style correctly then their goaltender only needs to be average. How scary would they be with a GREAT goalie? I know Smitty is currently out in Tampa for his post-concussion (read: his head hurts from playing for a team with no intelligent defensemen) syndrome, but I have no doubt that he’d play tomorrow for Detroit if he got traded.

Hagman is playing well in Toronto, no surprise there. He got the OT winning goal against the Rangers over the weekend and is on pace to score at least 20 this season. I want to be done complaining about Avery, but how nice would it have been to have resigned Hagman instead of the person (?) who’s sitting in Hartford eating up Tom Hicks’ wallet.

Speaking of Avery, I don’t know if he’ll be going to the Rangers with Tortorella taking over as coach. He’s not going to take crap from anyone, especially a tool like Avery. I read that the Sharks were scouting Avery – I’d love to transfer the poison to another Pacific division team.

Can Patrick Kane STOP CHEWING ON HIS MOUTHGUARD? He looks like a baby out there with a pacifier.

I want Columbus to make the playoffs. I am still a huge Hitchcock fan, and I’d love to see him get in again. And Rick Nash is the most talented player in the NHL with the exception of Ovechkin. Maybe they could do us a favor and knock San Jose or Detroit out of the playoffs?

I feel bad for Montreal – has there ever been a more epic collapse for a team with such high hopes?

For a closer, here is a picture of Sarah and me at the game Saturday. We’ve added a few more pieces to the outfits – I LOVE the Fanatics Scarves! They also make great rally towels 🙂

Let me start this by saying that I have wanted to sit with the Fanatics for quite some time now. I remember being at a game last spring and seeing that the Stars were holding auditions for something called the Havoc Fanatics. I was unaware of what all the group entailed, but from Jeff K’s description, it sounded like me. I attend every Stars game I am able to, and I watch or listen to all of the others while I’m at home or school. We request all the tickets in our package to be in the last row because I like to stand… and there’s my foot tall hat to consider. Most people usually don’t like sitting behind that. Anyway, I really wanted to go to the tryouts and try to be a Fanatic, but home is 200 miles north of Dallas and school is 250 miles south of Dallas so it’s hard for me to make it to games, much less tryouts on a Wednesday night.

So I didn’t try out for the Fanatics. I attended the last game of the season that year and spent much of the game looking at the Fanatics with my binoculars and wishing I could be up there. This past season, I started to get over not being a Fanatic by screaming and standing and generally doing whatever I felt like in my section. Needless to say, sometimes the people sitting next to me weren’t all that happy.

However, my time of not being a Fanatic was about to change. I had tickets to Game 4 of the Detroit series and I KNEW the Stars were going to win (I’ve never seen Detroit win against the Stars when I’ve been there). After standing down with our signs at the pregame skate, Sarah and I headed up to the Fanatics section because I wanted to get some pictures of all of their signs and artwork they had up for the playoffs.

We must have walked up at the right time because as soon as we got there one of the Fanatics was herding a Detroit fan out of the section. The Fanatic walked up to us (I don’t even think I ever got her name) and asked if Sarah and I would be willing to trade our tickets with Detroit fan and his friend because they couldn’t sit up in the section. We immediately said yes and showed the two guys to our seats. I did feel a little bad about leaving my parents and sticking a Detroit fan in my place, but I really wanted to sit with the Fanatics.

Sarah and I found seats in the middle of the section and got settled with our signs and multitude of other stuff. It was already time for the game to start and we found ourselves engulfed in the American flag. As soon as I realized this, I started to get giddy. I would get to help the American flag “wave” at the end of the anthem!

The game passed by in a blur. I’ve never felt so at home at a Stars game before. I got to stand up the whole game and yell and cheer as loud as I wanted without people looking at me like I belonged in a mental institution. One of the Fanatics wearing a Richards jersey recognized us from our blog and even took a picture of us in the section before the 2nd period started.

That brings me to another thing I got to do that I can cross off my life’s to-do list. I got to wave the Finnish flag before the 2nd period! As corny as it may sound, I love our Finns and I have wanted to wave the Finnish flag ever since I noticed the Fanatics waving flags for all the countries the Stars are from. I wanted to wave the Finnish flag because those guys are the nicest and sweetest hockey players you will ever meet. Plus they really like our signs for them. Lehtinen saw our signs at a practice and actually SMILED for a picture. I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of him where he looks like he’s in some kind of pain. Jussi used to shoot pucks at mine and Sarah’s faces when we held up our “We ❤ our Finns” sign. After Jussi left, Hagman took over that duty and regularly smiles at me and shoots pucks right at the sign. I need to say a GIANT thank you to the lady who let me borrow her Finnish flag 🙂

By the end of the game I was exhausted and Sarah was sweating like she had played in the game. I think the Fanatics section is the only warm section in the arena. With all the screaming and jumping around, I can see how it gets toasty up there. Leaving the arena after a victory was a great feeling. Sarah and I stood near the escalator holding our “Believe” sign high above our heads and started several Stars chants with the people leaving.

I don’t know if this was my favorite Stars game ever (Game 6 against the Guppies is pretty high up there too), but I definitely had the most fun. I finally felt like I got to be myself up there, and all the other Fanatics were so welcoming to us “babies” in the section. I would love to come cheer with you guys again next season.